@Boldline said in Arrange order icons - more intuitive and clean option?: the "arrange order" icons in Affinity seem more intutive to me than what we have in VS and it looks cleaner: I like the VS solution better and faster to use. In my opinion, even icons are clearer in VS.

@VectorStyler thanks for explanation.

@William-Kansepa said in Replacing linked image caused file size to balloon: If you check in Links panel, the image is still linked not embedded. Yes, but a copy of the image is also in the file. I will check why this happens.

@Boldline said in Editing Tracking value adds extra characters.: @VectorStyler said in Editing Tracking value adds extra characters.: @debraspicher This should be fixed in the 1.3.012 build @vectorstyler did you leave the 1.3.012 info update off the forum intentionally? No pressure or issue, was just curious Forgot to add that

@monsterfox Fixed

@stunthamster The file saving issue should be fixed in the newest app store version

@EricP Those curves was just an example to illustrate the Problem with " Center Line ". Alchemy is a writen in Java, maybe this cause Problems on your Mac. No Problem on PC here even the App is old. Yes, its a very unique little App. You could take a search on youtube btw. . . Vector graphics could be exported .SVG or as .PDF non of them export "Boids" as simple Paths. Export as .PDF is sometimes a better option to keep some colored results. . . I dont see tracing as an solution. Editing the code is also out of reach. To simple split the Alchemy Result and use the " center line " effect on both sides seems the easiest solution to me. But i will look for alternative ways. . . Why i want a Path ? I like to experiment and do not have a clear goal all of the time. I just take on step after another. My next Step is just how to get a path out of that Alchemy results. While the Boids are a bit random, i love the tangled curved results and thought it would be nice to have this as simple Paths. Of course there are cases where i could use just the Alchemy Result direct. But having that Result as paths offers further procession options in many ways. Of course also in other Apps too.

@VectorStyler Thank you so much! Wasn't expecting such a speedy response, another +1 Much appreciated

@Subpath @vectorstyler Thanks, was searching for that command. It's mapped under attributes and I was looking elsewhere. Couple of things I managed to add a menu shortcut using the customize toolboxes, but when I click on the icon, it only displays the attributes popup, and the icons and text description are not right. [image: 1776015361107-screenshot-2026-04-12-at-11.04.01-pm.png] I tried to add a custom shortcut, but it appears as “attribute” instead of being labeled as the cloned or clone, as it was named in the menu. I haven’t tested the shortcut yet. [image: 1776015935820-screenshot-2026-04-12-at-11.14.46-pm.png] I have two objects, one blue and the other magenta, each with its clone. When I select only one cloned object, say blue, the clone command selects parent clones of blue and magenta. Not sure if this is how it’s supposed to work. I would expect to select only blue parent clone only. [image: 1776015718706-screenshot-2026-04-12-at-11.01.11-pm.png] By the way, in Mac, Command+D to duplicate, and Option+D to clone. I don’t recall changing the shortcuts. Perhaps I did, and I need to check on that. Hope cloning of parent object instead of cloned ones could be addressed. Thanks.

@vectorstyler, thank you so much!

@ZATOPEK a couple things to consider when comparing noise effects : Affinity adds a white noise on a pixel basis (each pixel value seem independent of its neighbours), it is not a grain effect or 2D noise where neighboring pixels would have correlated values. document size in pixel will influence greatly the size of the noise "particles". A smaller document will have bigger noise particle size in relation to vector shape, than the same noise applied to the same shape on a higher resolution document Affinity rendering engine is very well optimized for fast rendering of multiple layers and uses dynamic image resampling based on display zoom. So, relative noise size will change as you zoom in and out. This can confuse you in thinking you have large noise grains at low zoom settings. But when you zoom in, you see the noise gets smaller and smaller same goes for exporting. If you export at low resolution, you will get large noise grains. If you export at higher resolution, you will get smaller noise grains. Noise grains are one pixel always a way to get a more accurate view in both AD and VS is to switch from vector to pixel view mode. You will avoid the display oversampling at high zoom settings. AD's noise in color chooser is smart and very easy to use, but it lacks configurability. On the other hand VS White Noise image effect is less immediate, but offers much more configurability (experiment with different noise types - random parameter, limit, amount, blend type ...) and you can get all sorts of variations. On SVG export, both AD and VS need to rasterize the noise into a clipping mask as noise is not a standard SVG attribute. [image: 1774688327207-scr-20260328-iyhh-resized.png]

@Ridgehammer There is some issue with the environment (settings or workspace). Try restoring to defaults.

To make the idea clearer, I’ve put together a visual overview that highlights the key behaviors and interactions of the tool. This idea comes from observation rather than direct experience, so there might be some flaws in the logic, but I believe a similar behavior could still be worth considering. The idea was also influenced by VectorStyler’s strong snapping system it made me wonder whether a form of tangent locking could exist within a similar logic. [image: 1774530197045-vectorstyler-feature-idea....png]

@Harry I will try to replicate and fix this

@debraspicher Send me a file with the shapes where the default settings has issue in the Shape Builder

@Boldline Will be fixed

@JET_VS Not really. Are there some examples for this?

@ThatMikeGuy A brief description: there are two groups of curve drawing tools How to use these is up to the users, some are present in other illustration apps also so they may be familiar. group 1: these are more commonly used Pen - this is the regular pen tool Pencil - similar to other apps, painting curves Path Sketch - this is VectorStyler specific, similar to Pencil but can intersect+union the curves as you draw Brush - these are real vector brushes (that is, the content of the brush is also vector) Line - well, a simple line tool group 2: these are a bit more complicated, some of these are present in other apps also. these can be of two type: parametric (retains editability), or just directly creating cubic Beziers The first 3 are creating regular paths with lines and curves: Curvature tool: creates a bezier shape with smooth curvature (similar to Illustrator) Bezigon tool: (similar to Freehand) lines and beziers (press Option/Alt for beziers) Arc tool: curves drawn as arcs The next 4 create parametric (live) shapes interpolating a sequence of points with various methods: Interpolated Shape: cubic interpolation, you can select the interpolation method in the Shape panel (or in the top row) B-Spline - interpolating B-Spline over a sequence of points, set the degree of interpolation in the panel Spline - cubic interpolating splines Curvature Shape - same as the Curvature tool, but retains the line shape and you can set the curvature precision in the Shape panel

@VectorStyler Thank you for taking a look at it, I'll get back to you.

@VectorStyler In 2025.12.11.23:33 the error of incorrect scaling when importing the two DXF files contained in the compressed package I provided into the program has not been fixed yet. It is hoped that this issue can be resolved.